Well-developed electronic health records hold the promise of helping health care professionals improve patient care and deliver it more efficiently, and the American Medical Association recognizes that enhancing EHR usability and interoperability will further ensure our nation's goal of a high-performing health care system. Physicians are generally prolific users of technology: new patient monitoring devices, diagnostic imaging, equipment and advanced surgical tools, to name a few.

July 3, 2013 is last day that eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) in their first year of participation of the Medicare EHR Incentive Program can begin their 90-day reporting period to demonstrate meaningful use for Fiscal Year (FY) 2013.

Hospitals in their second and third years of participation must demonstrate meaningful use for the full FY.

Note these important dates for eligible hospitals and CAHs:

CMS recently published a final rule that specifies the Stage 2 criteria that eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals (CAHs) must meet in order to continue to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs. This is going to create a large amount of new jobs. EHR vendors will be looking for Healthcare IT professionals with an understanding and experience with the meaningful use requirements.

We provide usability testing services for the ONC 2015 Edition Certification for Safety-enhanced Design

More than 50,000 healthcare IT jobs have sprouted since passing the HITECH Act, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates they’ll grow by 20 percent from 2008 to 2018 – much faster than all remaining US occupations per industry. A Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report reflecting the doubling of EHR adoption among physicians in two years from 17 to 34 percent. The rate of adoption among primary care doctors also increased significantly, from 20 to 39 percent.

Usability is often blamed by physicians' as the root cause of their dissatisfaction with their electronic health record systems (EHRs)

Some of the usability issues are addressed in Stage 2 of the ONC Meaningful Use incentive program.

During that stage, usability has been made part of the certification process. Vendors must go through formal usability evaluations in order to have their products approved as complying with meaningful use.

There has been a lot of chatter in the "twittersphere" about healthcare IT and Meaningful Use. We have noticed that there has also been a sharp increase in the number of Healthcare IT vendors that are seeking professionals with experience and knowledge of the current (and future) requirements for Meaningful Use funding.

The health information technology (HIT) provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) afford states and their Medicaid providers with a unique opportunity to leverage existing efforts to achieve the vision of interoperable information technology for health care.

Select Read More to see the top 20 Meaningful Use careers in your area

The HIPAA Risk Analysis is so important that it is the first item defined in the HIPAA Security Rule, a requirement since 2005. It forms the basis of your HIPAA compliance program, and should be updated annually or more often if something significant changes within your IT environment. The HIPAA Risk Analysis is the roadmap you must follow to secure electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) to ensure that you do not breach its confidentiality, integrity, or availability.

Usability is "the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use" [ISO9241]. Usability represents an important yet often overlooked factor impacting the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health record (EHR) systems. Without usable systems, doctors, medical technicians, nurses, administrative staff, consumers, and other users cannot gain the potential benefits of features and functions of EHR systems.